Although the service was ranked joint-bottom for rail-customer satisfaction, next week, the operators are going to lay the first stone by cancelling trains, on the twice per hour, to and from Beckenham Junction on the Metro.

Alex Foulds, services director at Southern said: “We are introducing this temporary weekday revised timetable with reluctance but it is the best thing we can do for our passengers who have been suffering daily cancellations ever since this dispute with the RMT began, for which we are sincerely sorry. It should give the majority of our passengers a better, more consistent service that they can plan around.” Alex Foulds spoke out that he was “not surprised” by the results of the National Rail Passenger Survey.

Foulds said: “The survey was carried out after a prolonged period of poor performance due to the constraints of London Bridge. The effects of a new timetable introduced in December to improve performance were then lost amidst a series of infrastructure failures which severely affected punctuality and reliability during the survey period. These coupled with the after effects of Storm Imogen and two train failures in key locations made for a pretty miserable time for passengers. Once through this challenging period we did start to see performance begin to improve, although this has now been overtaken by the recent industrial action. We recognise there is much to do and we continue to work hard with Network Rail to improve the performance of our network and our plans to improve customer service on our trains and stations, should ultimately deliver a better experience for all our passengers. We thank them for their patience.”

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